


Always and Forever

by fiorediloto



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Kid Fic, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28117137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiorediloto/pseuds/fiorediloto
Summary: “Just tell him. He’s sixteen, for Christ’s—”“Fourteen. And I’m not taking child-rearing advice from a sleazy spinster, thank you very much.”She just snorted at the insult, which was as familiar and good-natured as any of hers. “What does Dick think?”“We haven’t talked about it,” Lew said, the lie winning him a soft groan from his sister.“Well,” she said, and Lew could practicallyhearher roll her eyes, the gesture so familiar and similar to the way his own son mutely reminded him every day that he considered Lew an idiot that Lew almost gritted his teeth. “Roy’s his boy too, isn’t he?”
Relationships: Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters
Comments: 21
Kudos: 73
Collections: Heavy Artillery Holiday Exchange 2020





	Always and Forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rilla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/gifts).



> Thanks to my beta reader [Tec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales): honey, you're truly the best!  
>    
> Both opening quotes (and the title) are from _The Little Prince_.
> 
> Dear Rilla, I hope you like it. Have a wonderful Christmas <3

_“Of course I love you. It is my fault that you have not known it all the while.”_

_“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”_

Lew woke up to Dick’s alarm, the little hammer banging furiously on the two metal plates with a piercing, tinny noise. Such an annoying sound, and he so unused to it, that he gasped himself awake, only to meet Dick’s eyelids calmly lifting and his eyes slowly focusing on Lew like the angry ruckus was barely registering.

They exchanged a glance. The edges of their pillows overlapped, and their faces were so close that Dick’s nose was a blur. A stray ray of sunlight pierced through the curtains and made Dick’s eyes look wide and grey like a misty sky; his pupils shrunk as they took in the light. He blinked, the alarm still going off, and then Dick’s eyebrows shot up to his forehead and he tried to roll off and away, one hand snatching out, but all his limbs were a tangle with Lew’s, arms, legs, the bedsheets, all stuck in a shapeless monster, and Dick had to extricate himself before he could kill the blasted thing. For a moment, after it was done, Lew could still hear it ring.

“Shit,” he cursed under his breath, pushing the sheets away and looking around for his clothes. “Shit.”

Dick rolled back onto his side and bent an arm under his cheek. He didn’t get up; he just studied Lew’s increasingly frantic quest for his clothes, all of which, as if dragged around by a whirlwind, had made their way to the deepest recesses of Dick’s room: pants on a chair, briefs on the bedside rug, pajama shirt—ah, who the fuck knew anymore?

“You had one job,” Lew grumbled as he kneeled down and craned his neck to check under the bed.

“I’m sorry,” Dick said, though he didn’t sound too apologetic. “I fell asleep.”

“ _One job_ ,” Lew repeated, voice echoing eerily between the floor and the bottom of the bed. He could see Dick’s body bearing the mattress net down in a bulge; right under it sat his crumpled shirt. He grabbed it and crawled back out, pulling himself up on his feet and straightening his back with a soft groan.

“It's still early. Nix, it’s fine,” Dick reassured him.

“Fine, my ass,” Lew hissed. “I'm forty. I’m too old to sneak around like a goddamn teenager.”

“As a matter of fact, I agree.”

“Don’t,” Lew stopped him, raising a stern finger. “None of that now.”

Dick sighed and flopped onto his back, arms open on either side of his body like he was ready to be nailed to the Cross. The sheets had rolled off his chest, which was naked just like the rest of his body, an oddity and further proof that he had just fallen asleep rather than willfully lured Lew into a trap. Lew put his clothes on in a hurry but while he did, he allowed himself to glance at the expanse of Dick’s chest, the reddish hair glinting attractively in the first light, the careful brackets of his ribcage, the flat belly which Lew had once seen deprived, hollowed out, but now was lean and sculpted by exercise. He let his shirt fall over his eyes, and when he re-emerged, Dick had propped himself up on his elbows and was looking right back at him. His hair was messed up by sleep: thinner than it used to be, but still a fiery red.

“What?” Lew asked.

Dick shook his head. “Just wondering if you’re going to kiss me at all today,” he declared, and the plain honesty of the request melted most of the irritation in Lew's chest.

He rolled his eyes theatrically. “What’s with the sentimental drivel?” he grumbled while he walked over to Dick’s side of the bed and leaned to hook his fingers gently around the back of Dick’s neck.

He opened his mouth a little and pressed a generous kiss on Dick’s mouth. He felt decidedly more forgiving now, which he bet was exactly why Dick had done it, the sly Quaker.

As his thumb dragged over Dick’s jaw, a fleeting thought hit Lew: how much he’d used to love taking his time with Dick in the morning, being the bad influence, forcing Dick to stay in bed longer than Dick would ever allow himself. That was right after the war: before they moved out to the country, before New Jersey almost destroyed them, before Kathy went and got herself—He swatted the thought away like he would a fly.

“You going out soon?”

Dick nodded. “See you at breakfast?”

“Yeah.” Lew headed to the door. “No eggs for you today, Major. You’ve been naughty.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that,” Dick acknowledged, the faintest ghost of a smile lingering on his lips as Lew sneaked out of the door and closed it carefully behind his back.

Lew worried too much, he knew. In the early days, Dick used to try to step in and point out what he believed was the comforting reality of things, which never helped, but after a dozen years, he’d learned to keep out of the way. Now he preferred to gently rib Lew for his anxiety, or pretend like he didn’t see it mount, letting it run its course like a fever until Lew came around with his own reasonable explanation for why things were going to be okay, after all.

He hadn’t always been a worrier. He wasn’t sure when the transition had happened, when he’d turned into this man who double-checked that his car was locked and paid his bills ahead of the due date. For the most part of his life, he’d been as carefree as a man can be, plucking the fruit of others’ labor, barely bothering to show up, leaving the maintenance work to lesser people. Blanche, whose main hobby was finding people’s tender spots and poking at them to her heart’s content, had called him on his sins once, dissecting his faults with surgical precision: _Sober. Employed. Happily married. Jesus, if Mom could see._

Lew sneaked back into his room, padding lightly on the floorboards covered in long hand-knit rugs, courtesy of Edith Winters. Doris Nixon wouldn’t have dignified the man he’d become with a second glance, let alone sending housewarming gifts. When he’d moved out of New Jersey she’d been dead already for a few years, so she’d been spared the humiliation of seeing her only living son become a quasi-farmer, his precipitous tumble down the social ladder landing him more levels below hers than she probably knew existed. She wouldn’t have been alone in her disapproval; after thirty years, she and Stanhope could have had this one thing to agree on. In his darker moments, when he felt like poking at all his painful spots, Lew wondered if his father thought of her sometimes, if he looked up to the sky and mumbled a curse to the memory of his ex-wife: _It’s your fault that he turned into a fag._

Lew’s own alarm would ring in half an hour, another fact that would've surprised his mother. He opened the pristine sheets of his bed, lay down, and allowed himself to take a long breath, relax, and stretch his limbs for a few minutes. The house was perfectly silent; even perking his ears, he couldn't hear Dick move around in his room, getting ready for his morning run. He almost considered staying in bed until the alarm went off, but discarded the idea as silly. He lingered for a moment, then got up again, and headed out for his morning shower as if nothing had happened. When he came back he made his bed with perfect corners like they’d taught him in the Army, changed into day clothes, rapped at Roy’s door until a muffled “Yeah, yeah” came from the other side, and walked down to the kitchen.

It was Thursday, so he’d make eggs and bacon for everyone, whether or not he thought the major deserved it. Dick had brought in the newspaper and the milk before leaving for his run, setting them on the kitchen table, and Lew took out the ingredients and the cookie jar and lit the first cigarette of the day as he idly munched one cookie after another and perused the daily news.

“‘rning,” Roy mumbled sleepily as he poured himself into the chair next to Lew’s. He dipped a hand into the cookie jar and slouched forward and he thrust a cookie into his mouth, his weight resting flaccidly on his elbow. He yawned with his mouth wide open like a roaring lion.

“Hand,” Lew said without looking up from the paper. Roy rolled his eyes and held a hand in front of his mouth after the yawn was already over.

“Sleep well?” Lew asked, turning a page.

“Hm. Fine,” Roy muttered. He sounded ticked off, but whenever did he not in the morning?

He was a good-looking boy, lanky and graceless like all boys his age, but with a handsome face, although currently made a little ridiculous by the very precocious attempt of his body to express facial hair. Not even six months before, Lew had taken it upon himself to teach the kid to shave, only to lose his patience three minutes into the operation—as was the case every time he tried to teach the kid anything. The little brat was as uncooperative as he was smart, and irritating even on a good day. A week later, Dick had picked up the pieces of Lew’s failed attempt, and lo and behold, Roy had sat and listened and learned, starry-eyed and docile as a puppy whenever Dick was involved.

Soon enough they heard the scraping of Dick’s running shoes on the gravel path, a light spring in his step as he made it to the front door and let himself in. Lew looked up through the kitchen window, allowing himself to catch a glint of moist hair and the dark arrow of sweat pooling on the front of Dick’s shirt, then went back to the stove.

“Morning,” Dick called, breath still coming out in light pants from the final sprint up the hill.

“Morning,” Roy said, mouth half full with cookies. Dick took off his shoes and slotted his feet into his slippers before coming into the house.

“Good run?” Lew asked when Dick came close.

“Yeah. Not too warm,” Dick answered, opening the fridge to grab the milk carton from the door shelf.

“Mornings are getting colder.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Dick declared, smiling softly at Lew behind the shield of the open fridge door. He rested his hand lightly on the small of Lew's back as he reached up to the cupboard where they kept the glasses. Lew glared at him, but Dick’s eyes crinkled softly behind his milk.

“Go shower. Breakfast is ready in ten,” Lew said, in the stern voice of a drill sergeant. The reaction he got was Dick patting Lew’s round buttcheek with a satisfied grin. He closed the fridge door on his way out.

Conversation with Roy was non-existent while Dick was away. Lew asked a few routine questions which fell flat, answered by monosyllables or grunts, and finally focused on making breakfast in pure domestic silence. There was a rustling noise when Roy reached out to grab the newspaper; at the corner of his eye, Lew saw him browse lazily through the first five or six pages before flipping it around to read the comic strips. There he lingered, eyes scanning down the page until the briefest ghost of a smile appeared on his mouth. He glanced at the crossword, uninterested, and finally closed the newspaper and folded it away.

“Roy, set the table,” Lew said, flipping the bacon. The boy emitted a displeased sound and sluggishly stood up to collect plates and cutlery.

As if on cue, the telephone rang sharply the moment Dick was coming down the stairs. He walked straight to the phone table in the entrance and picked it up.

“Winters,” he said, curt and business-like, eyeing Lew who was pouring breakfast from the pan into the plates. Lew was instantly reminded of the house in New Jersey, of Dick picking up the receiver and announcing, “ _Nixon residence_ ,” as if he were a guest—no, not even: as if he were the help. Six miserable years they’d spent in that house; five if you didn’t count the break-up.

“Napkins,” Lew told Roy with a tinge of impatience. “What are we, cavemen?”

“Oh, hello Jeanne,” Dick’s voice came through the open door. “How—Oh. Sorry to hear that. Is he coming in tomorrow, then?... I understand. No—No, don’t worry. We’ll manage. You take care. Bye.”

Dick walked out of the phone room with a noisy sigh.

“Everything all right?”

“Tom’s not coming in. _‘A touch of the flu,’_ ” Dick explained with a displeased face. He took the paper napkin that Roy was handing him straight from the package, as the boy was too lazy to fold it properly and set it down by the plate. “Thanks.”

“The poor man must be on his deathbed.”

“That’s what I thought. I can’t remember the last time he called in sick.”

“What are you going to do?”

Dick looked out the window. “I can’t put it off. We’ve got another two days of good weather, then it’s rain until the end of the week.” He stabbed a bacon strip and cut it. “Jeanne offered to come herself,” he added with a pensive shake of his head.

“And you turned her down.”

“Course I did.”

Lew waved his fork with a bit of fried egg perched on top in a disapproving motion. “Big mistake. That woman’s a work horse.”

“Yeah, well,” Dick sighed. Lew could never tell if these little self-inflicted courtesies came from Dick’s Mennonite upbringing or from a general dislike of the idea of taking advantage of the people he liked.

“I guess I could help,” Lew offered, after a moment of consideration.

Dick schooled his expression, but Roy snorted noisily into his breakfast.

“You got something to say, son?”

“You’re no good on the field,” Roy reminded him, face still downcast, torturing his bacon into smaller and smaller bits.

“You haven’t seen me on the field, little brat,” Lew retorted.

“Yeah? Last spring? Ten minutes in, you started sweating like a pig, you cried that you were gonna have a heart attack, and we had to send you back in and finish on our own.”

Now that was not the way Lew remembered it, but regardless, Lew would be damned if he let the kid give him lip after he’d put food on his plate. Lew filled his lungs for a piqued reply, something along the lines of, _Whose money do you think paid for that goddamn harvester out there?_ , but Dick seemingly read his face and preceded him.

“That’s no way of talking to your father,” he said sternly.

Roy looked minimally chastised. “He’s not gonna be much help, is all I’m saying.”

“Well,” Dick said after a moment, looking back at him with that sheepish, unthreatening expression which had fooled more than one career soldier in his days, “I need to find someone.”

Roy kept his head carefully low in his breakfast. Unlike Lew, who wouldn’t walk a mile to the grocery store if he could drive, he was pretty much the outdoors-y type, loved toiling the fields, and especially loved helping Dick with farm work of any kind: seeding, harvesting, carpentry, even tending to the rose garden. But these days he’d become something of a ghost, a presence, barely bothering _being_ around, let alone doing anything useful: he spent most of the day in town with his friends, showing up just in time for dinner, much to Lew’s chagrin and Dick’s puzzlement.

“I have school,” Roy mumbled.

“It’ll take only two days,” Dick said. “If your father agrees,” he added, as a matter of course, looking up at Lew.

Lew shook his head, feigning disapproval. “You know I don't like Roy missing school days,” he said, chewing away the beginnings of a smile.

“I know,” Dick raised his hands, sounding regretful. “Oh, well. I’ll get on the phone, see if I can find someone else.”

“Oh, come on, Dick,” Lew rebutted. “It’s too late now to start making phone calls.”

“It _is_ late,” Dick admitted. “But if Roy can’t help…”

Roy’s gaze climbed up from his plate. “I promised Joe I’d help him mow their lawn after school,” he said sulkily.

“Really? When’s the last time you mowed _our_ lawn?”

“Dad, come on—”

“I’ll release you after school hours,” Dick promised, and Roy grudgingly relaxed.

“Fine.”

Lew crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back on his chair. “I’ll call the school. Say you’ve got,” he smirked, “a touch of the flu.” He pointed at Roy’s still half full plate. “Now finish your breakfast. The way you poke at it, I swear I don’t know why I bother anymore.”

  
  


***

  
  


_1947_

  
  


The call had started with Blanche vomiting a litany of insults over his head, which Lew had taken in stunned silence, letting the words roll over him and fire up his guilt even worse than it already was. He’d taken it all: irresponsible, idiotic, sick, pathetic. The questions — _What the hell were you thinking?_ — the lamentations — _That poor boy would’ve lost his father too!_ — the dismay and the outrage, all through it Lew had let her vent off, until the harsh words had finally given way to a tense silence, and at the end of it all a grumpy: “Anyway. How are you?” had signaled to Lew that he was allowed to speak again.

“I’m fine,” he said. “They patched me up good.” A pause. “Dick’s here.” As if she didn’t know.

“He’s a goddamn saint, that man,” Blanche sighed into the receiver, and she sounded angry again as she said that, like Lew did not deserve to have someone like _that_ in his life—a fact Lew was painfully aware of, an undeniable truth that Lew had proven time and time again to himself and everyone else, until even Saint Dick Winters had had no choice but give him up, pack his bags, and take the highway.

There was a small interruption, the operator reminding Blanche that their long-distance call was now fifteen minutes long, but she shushed the lady, uninterested, and went back to the matter at hand.

“What did the police say?” Blanche asked.

“No one was hurt,” Lew sighed. “I’ll pay for the guardrail, and that’s it.”

“You’ve been so lucky,” Blanche mumbled, voice breaking up a little on the last word. “So fucking lucky.”

“Blanche, come on—”

“Ha. Whatever. It’s not like you give a crap about anyone but yourself.”

“That’s not true. You know it’s not.”

Another ten minutes later, Lew hung up and limped into the living room. Apart from the small reading lamp by the sofa, the room was dark. The fireplace had died off at some point, leaving behind a pile of lukewarm embers which barely emitted a glow. The Christmas tree was bare, undecorated, and chances were it would stay like that.

Lew entered the room unsure of what he would find there. What he found was Dick, sitting upright with a book propped up on his crossed leg and held open with one hand; the other arm disappeared under a lump Lew correctly identified to be his sleeping son wrapped in a blanket.

“You comfortable like that?” Lew asked under his breath. Dick looked up from his book, threw a glance at the boy’s head which rested in the crook of his arm, ear glued to his wristwatch, and hummed an assent.

Lew crossed the room trying not to limp too badly, but his left side would flare with pain if he walked straight, so he resigned himself to look just as pitiful as he felt and made his way to the liquor cabinet hunched forward.

Dick didn’t say anything, although Lew heard a soft sigh from somewhere behind his back. It didn’t stop him from going through with it; he grabbed the bottle and poured himself half a finger of scotch. _For the pain_ , he thought. He could hear Dick’s disapproval like static waves blowing his way when he let himself fall gracelessly onto the sofa, balancing with his free hand on the armrest.

He took a sip, taking the harsh burn rolling down his throat as a welcome punishment.

Dick had gone back to his book.

“He likes you,” Lew said after a while.

“He likes my watch,” Dick murmured. His eyes grazed the boy’s dark head, half-peeking through the edge of the blanket. He raised his fingers from the open book in a quickly aborted gesture, and laid them back on the page. “He’s a good boy.”

“Despite my best efforts.”

Lew shifted his weight. Sitting upright was a pain, so he slouched sideways to place his right elbow on the armrest. He put the glass down on his left knee; he didn’t trust his unsteady fingers.

“I made the bed in the guest room,” he said.

“I could’ve done it myself.”

Lew waved away the objection. “There’s a train to Philly at ten tomorrow,” he continued. “I’d drive you, but—” He dropped the sentence, unable to spell out the shame he felt thinking of his totalled Thunderbird. “I’ll call you a cab.”

That finally got Dick to peel his gaze from his lap. His expression was carefully neutral. “You don’t think you need help here?”

“I’ll hire a new nanny.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Dick replied, eyes dropping pointedly to Lew’s glass.

“This? This is nothing. I was already going to cut back. Starting tomorrow, I’ll—”

“You almost killed yourself, Nix.”

“I told you, there was black ice on the road. It’s not like I _wanted_ to—” He was getting angry. “You all talk to me like I did it on purpose. I’m not crazy, you know? I wasn’t trying to—to—”

Dick touched his wrist, and just like that, Lew’s fingers stopped trembling and his voice died off. Dick’s touch grounded him, silently reminding him how strong the man was.

“All I’m saying is, maybe you shouldn’t be alone now.”

“I’m not alone,” Lew resisted, but Dick’s grip on his wrist didn’t relent.

“That’s part of the problem, isn’t it?”

“I can take care of my own son. The whole world does it. It doesn’t take oak leaves.”

Dick shook his head; his hand moved away.

Bereft, Lew felt his anger deflate, and exhaled all that he had in one long, painful breath. “Look. I’m grateful for the help. I really am. But I’m fine. And this, I can’t—I won’t ask.” He rubbed his face with his hand, hard, like he was trying to wake up from some difficult dream. He turned his head to face Dick. “If you’re not staying, I don’t want him getting attached.”

Dick was silent for a moment at that. Lew got suddenly anxious that his real point hadn’t come across, that Dick was considering the wrong problem, and they would be stuck again in the endless cycle of rinse and repeat that had doomed whatever chance at happiness they had had the first time round. He added quickly: “He’ll be fine, I swear. But as for the rest, I’m no better than I was. I’m trying, God knows I am, but—”

Dick nodded slowly. “That’s more than you used to do.”

Lew broke into a pained chuckle. That was Dick, willing to accept any sign of effort, no matter how small, as if that made all the difference. Lew had hated it: not the indulgence, the soft touch, but the knowledge that his progress on the way to becoming a better human being could be measured not in miles, but in inches, an endless crawling forward—and Dick, bless his heart, Dick could see it all.

“If I’m staying, some things will have to change,” Dick said, a little more firmly, like he’d broken through some invisible resistance and now he could advance. One step after another, like in the war.

“I know.”

“That has to go,” Dick said, tipping his chin at Lew’s glass.

“I know,” Lew said.

“All of it.”

Lew swallowed, uncertain for a moment, but what Dick was offering was so close to everything Lew had ever wanted that he didn’t dare disagree. He said what Dick wanted to hear, and if part of him knew it was a lie, a bigger part of him ached for it to be true; for him to be the kind of man who could make a promise to the man he loved and keep it.

“Yes. All right. I will.”

“All right,” Dick echoed, suddenly sounding tired, like he’d held up firm for this long only to make sure that his point came across, and now that they’d got there, he saw no need to continue pretending.

“We can get you your old job back,” Lew said, happy to steer the conversation to something else, practical matters, solid ground. “If you want it. God knows you’re missed.”

“Maybe,” Dick stalled. He didn’t sound very excited at the prospect. “Come on. Help me get the boy to bed.”

So they did, and after Roy was safely tucked into his bed—having barely turned in Dick’s arms as he carried the boy—Lew escorted Dick to the guest room. Dick knew it well, for it had been his bedroom for two years, although he’d barely ever used it.

Lew lingered at the door, feeling like an intruder in his own home. Dick moved with the curt familiarity of someone who’d lived in the place and knew where everything was, stopping only to register what was changed or out of place. Dick turned on the bedside lamp, sat on the bed, and suddenly his presence seemed to Lew to expand and occupy every corner of the room, reaching out to Lew’s standing silhouette frozen half in, half out of the door frame.

“Come here,” Dick said quietly.

Lew hesitated, suddenly second-guessing his luck. “Remember when I drove down to Lancaster?”

Dick nodded, face looking somber, almost pained at the memory. It hadn't been Lew's finest hour.

“I asked you to take me back,” Lew said. “I begged you.”

“It was different then,” Dick replied.

“How?”

“I told you.” Dick looked up to the ceiling and released a controlled breath. “I couldn’t be the only thing you had.”

Both of their gazes were drawn to the wall beyond which Roy slept with his small mouth half open, drooling happily onto his pillow.

“He’s not—” Lew faltered, and started again. “You can’t be carrying the both of us.”

“I won’t,” Dick said calmly. “That’s your job.” He waited for that to sink in, and then called again: “Come here. Let me check those bruises.”

Lew took a breath, looked behind himself into the dark corridor which offered nothing but cold and loneliness, and back at Dick’s face: calm, collected, a pillar of strength.

He abandoned his shelter by the door jamb and walked into the light.

  
  


***

  
  


Lew had a couple of errands to run in town, so he drove off with the picture of Dick and Roy in matching overalls in his rearview mirror. Roy’s were a hand-me-down of Dick’s, and the legs had had to be rolled up. The colors were off, but for just a moment, in the right light, he could’ve bet that they looked like father and son.

At the bank he requested his statements, glanced over his numerous, long-term, painfully prudent investments to check that they were still paying off, made sure that Roy’s college fund was still there, and finally transferred a slightly oversized sum of money from his personal account to the business one they had opened in Dick’s name.

When he left the bank he felt satisfied, like he’d accomplished something, even though all he’d done was dump money he owned but hadn’t earned into this project he lived side-by-side with, but didn’t want to guide or steer. Five years since its inception, Dick’s feed business still did little more than suckling resources like a calf from its mother’s tit, a fact Lew knew had at least something to do with Dick’s obsession that they kept expenses to the minimum—refusing to hire an accountant, for one; or shouldering most of the manual labor by himself, with minimal help if he couldn’t avoid it and otherwise alone; or steadfastly refusing to listen to what he called Lew’s backseat driving.

“You know, one of us has an actual business degree,” Dick had said stiffly once, after Lew’s suggestion that Dick stopped focusing on toiling the fields and started considering marketing his products outside of Hershey, where every farmer and their mother already had a trusted feed supplier.

“One of us couldn’t sell water to a thirsty man,” Lew had replied, and things had gotten a little heated after that, so much so that Lew hadn’t come over to Dick’s room for his goodnight kiss, and it had taken them until the next day at lunch to finally admit to themselves that they were being ridiculous, and make up.

After that, Lew decided to let sleeping dogs lie and simply resolved to move cash on a regular basis, making sure that the business stayed afloat and all the bills were paid without relying on massive bank loans. Come what may, such a small-scale project wouldn’t bankrupt them even if a storm were to raze every hectare of land they owned. At least not after Doris Nixon had gone and left them with millions to spare.

Lewis liked to think with a bizarre sense of pride that Doris would disapprove of the way he'd decided to spend, or not spend, his part of the bounty, but he was _sure_ that she wouldn't like what Blanche was doing with hers.

He and Blanche spoke every week, sometimes more often, the long-distance calls usually taking place in the evening, after dinner had been eaten, Dick had curled up in his chair with a book, and Roy had gone off to sulk in his room. More often than not, Lew’s sister was preparing for some fancy party that was always just about to start. “I’ve only got a minute, there’s _so much_ to do,” she would say, although she was the one who’d called, and then she’d walk Lew through exactly all the things she had to do.

Their last conversation, while perfectly nice, had left Lew with something of a bitter aftertaste. He mulled it over now, as he made his way back to his car. It had been around the time when Lew had asked her if she was still seeing this or that man whose name he couldn’t remember, and she had returned the favor by asking him if he and the major were still sleeping in separate rooms and secretly holding hands when the boy couldn’t see.

“Ha, ha,” he’d replied, sarcastic and piqued. “Very funny.”

“Lew dear, it wasn’t a joke,” she sighed, like Lew was a little slow and she tired of having to explain everything to him.

“Yeah, well, it’s not like there’s another way,” he replied, voice turning a little sulky.

She chuckled bitterly. “Just tell him. He’s sixteen, for Christ’s—”

“Fourteen. And I’m not taking child-rearing advice from a sleazy spinster, thank you very much.”

She just snorted at the insult, which was as familiar and good-natured as any of hers. “What does Dick think?”

“We haven’t talked about it,” Lew said, the lie winning him a soft groan from his sister.

“Well,” she said, and Lew could practically _hear_ her roll her eyes, the gesture so familiar and similar to the way his own son mutely reminded him every day that he considered Lew an idiot that Lew almost gritted his teeth. “Roy’s his boy too, isn’t he?”

Lew hung up and walked over to Dick’s armchair, Blanche’s words ringing softly in his ears. The back of his mouth burned like at the start of a complicated digestion.

“Hey,” he said softly, perching himself carefully on Dick’s armrest.

“Hey,” Dick answered, studied his expression for a split second, and rested his hand on Lew’s knee. “Something wrong?”

Lew’s mind went up a flight of stairs to Roy’s room, from which, if he perked his ears, he could faintly hear his awful Elvis seeping through the door and the walls.

He shook his head. He felt unsteady, like Blanche had tugged at the carpet he was standing on—just a little tug, nothing more, but now he felt like he had to keep his knees bent for extra balance, just in case it happened again. Once upon a time, when he felt unsteady, he would turn to the bottle; these days, he went to Dick.

“Thought I might come over later,” he said.

“Yeah, sure,” Dick answered, thumb idly stroking the front of Lew’s knee. “After bedtime.”

Lew’s voice dropped to a murmur. “If you promise you won't let me fall asleep.”

“All right,” Dick smiled. “How was your sister?”

Lew considered the question as he stood up. He would go sit outside on the porch and try not to let what Blanche had said get too deep under his skin. “Bored,” he answered.

Now Lew put away the thought for good, got into his car, and headed off to the grocery store. He filled his cart with everything that was on his list, and with quite a few things that weren’t: Reese’s, licorice, butter cookies, two tubs of chocolate ice cream, and a stick of Chesterfields from the stand by the register. He tipped the bag boy and headed home.

  
  


***

  
  


_1951_

  
  


When Daddy and Dick came back from the factory, Roy clutched his notebook to his chest and ran to the door.

Dick said hi and hung the car keys on the hook by the door; Daddy didn’t say anything. Both their faces were a little red. Daddy peeled off his coat and threw it onto the back of a chair on his way to the living room.

“Hello, young man,” Dick said, picking Roy up with a soft _‘oof’_ sound. Roy was too old to be picked up, Daddy said, but Dick still did it from time to time, mostly when Daddy wasn’t watching. Roy didn’t ask for it, but he didn’t mind either.

Dick’s coat was a little wet—it was raining—and it smelled like Daddy’s cigarettes. “How was school?”

“Good,” Roy said proudly, and he almost spilled the beans about his surprise, but he managed to bite his tongue. The notebook was pressed between his chest and Dick’s coat, but Daddy wasn't there to see, and it was a surprise for both of them, so he didn’t pull it out just yet.

“Did you finish your homework?”

Roy nodded, lips pressed together tight.

“I left dinner in the oven, Mr. Winters,” Betty said. “Carrot casserole. It’s still warm.”

“Ah, Betty, you’re an angel,” Dick sighed.

Betty smiled, looking pleased. She pushed herself up on her tiptoes and leaned in to kiss Roy’s cheek. “Good night, pumpkin. Don’t forget to show your uncle all your hard work.”

Roy opened his mouth to inform Betty of her mistake—Dick was not his _uncle_ —but Dick shook his head, smiling, and when she bent to put her shoes on, he pressed his finger to his lips behind her back as if to say, _It's a secret._

“It's picking up again,” Dick said, looking out of the window. “Do you have an umbrella, Betty?”

“Ah, yes,” she said, pulling an overly serious black umbrella from the rack.

“Why don't you drive her home,” came Daddy's voice from the living room. He stepped out on the door frame, one of his special bottles open in his right hand. His tie was hanging loose around his neck.

“Oh, no, it's no problem,” Betty said, blushing. Now her cheeks were as red as Daddy's.

Daddy was smiling, but he didn’t look happy. Dick's grip around Roy's legs tightened up a little.

“Come on, Dick,” Daddy insisted. “Sweet Betty here went out of her way to make you dinner. Least you can do is thank her properly.”

“Nix, that's enough,” Dick said.

“Roy mentioned liking carrots, and I thought—,” Betty stammered and her voice faded out.

“That's right,” Daddy said, voice rough. “We love carrots in this family.”

Roy had no idea of what was happening, he only knew that suddenly everybody was moving away from everybody. Dick put him down onto the floor, Betty grabbed her coat and rushed to the door without saying goodbye, and Daddy huffed a throaty laugh that, again, had no joy, no fun in it, and retreated to the living room with his bottle and his tie and his red face.

“Roy, go wash your hands,” Dick ordered, and he walked out onto the porch with Betty. Roy did not go. He ran to the kitchen instead, pushed a chair close to the window, and climbed on top of it to look out.

Dick and Betty were talking. Well, he was talking—she was looking at her shoes with a pose that Roy recognized from class, the same he or his mates took when the teacher called them out on some wrongdoing or other. Then she left and Dick hung out on the porch, looking like he didn’t know what to do, which was absurd because Dick always knew what to do, and he ran a hand over his face and his hair in one long swipe.

Roy felt suddenly afraid that Dick wouldn’t come back in, but then Dick shook his head, turned around, and opened the front door. By the time Roy had climbed off the kitchen chair and rushed back to the door, Dick had taken off his coat.

“Did you wash your hands?” Dick asked.

“Yes,” Roy lied.

“Roy,” Dick called, a little sharply, and Roy’s eyes dropped to his shoes just like Betty’s had a minute ago. “Hands. Now.”

From the bathroom on the ground floor Roy could hear bits and pieces of Dick’s and Daddy’s discussion; Dick’s voice was hushed, Daddy’s loud and raspy. Roy stayed where he was. Daddy didn’t often go to his liquor cabinet these days, but when he did, he knew to stay out of the way.

“—no way to treat that poor—”

“—so fucking oblivious, you can’t even see when someone's trying to get into your goddamn pa—”

“—that's unfair to both of us and you know—”

“—so much, why don’t you _marry_ her? Huh? Then you can go to McAuliffe and show him your damn ring and maybe they won’t send you to Ko—”

“Nix—”

“—there’s always the other way, isn’t there? You tell them. You tell them you’re a goddamn fa—”

“Are you finished?”

“—because you _want_ to go. Major was not enough, nothing’s ever _fucking_ enough for—”

There was a long silence; reassuring at first, then puzzling, then terrifying. Roy opened the bathroom door and peeked his head out into the dark corridor, trying to catch a noise, any noise, but nothing came. Finally he padded to the top of the staircase and took a peek at the living room. From this spot he could see just a slice of it through the archway that separated it from the entrance.

What he saw wasn’t scary, but it didn’t make a whole lot of sense either. Dick was sitting on his armchair, as he often did; Daddy was sitting in his lap, arms looped around Dick’s body, face hidden in the crook of Dick’s neck. Dick’s own arms were wrapped loosely around Dad’s waist. Dick’s eyes were closed, like the two of them were taking a nap.

Finally Dick opened his eyes and raised his chin from Dad’s head, where it was resting.

“I can’t go on like this, Nix,” he said, voice soft and trembling like Roy had never heard it before. It didn't sound like Dick's at all. It sounded _wrong_. “The factory. Your father. I—can’t.”

Dad said something, or maybe he didn’t.

“Okay,” Dick said, patting the back of Daddy’s head like a baby. “Okay.”

Roy retreated quietly to the shadows and went to sit in his room. Dick came to smoke him out a little while later, at least a full hour since the fight had subsided into a buzzing silence. He sat on the edge of Roy’s bed and stroked his head, a rare gesture these days, before asking him if he was hungry.

Roy nodded. “Is Daddy still angry?” he asked.

Dick shook his head. “No, he’s not.”

“Why was he mad at Betty?”

“He wasn’t mad at Betty. He was mad at me.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a problem, and your dad and I didn’t agree on the best way to solve it.”

“Why was Daddy mad if it’s your problem?”

“Because,” Dick left the answer hanging for a moment so long that Roy was sure he would say what grown-ups always said when they didn't want you to know something, _“we'll talk about it when you're older.”_ But Dick didn't. He looked about himself before letting his gaze fall back on Roy, and he sighed like he wasn't happy to say what he was going to say, but he was going to do it anyway.

“Because we’re friends, and so my problems aren't just my problems.”

Roy frowned at the thought. “Dad's problems are your problems too?”

Dick smiled. “You bet.”

Roy chewed his bottom lip. “Did you make up?”

“More or less.”

Roy frowned. After a fight, the teacher had him and his friends make up and that was it; there was no halfway to it. “What’s that?”

Dick pursed his lips. “Do you know what a compromise is?”

Roy shook his head.

“So,” Dick cleared his throat a little, “sometimes two people want something from each other, but neither wants to give up what the other wants. Say,” he scanned the room for something, “that I want all your Flash Gordons, and you want my watch. Now neither of us likes this deal, but we want what we want, right?”

Roy nodded carefully. He really liked Dick's watch.

“So I come to you and I say, _Fine, Roy, I’ll take half your comics and you can have my watch on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays_. This way we both get something. That’s a compromise.”

“But that’s not good enough,” Roy protested.

“Yeah,” Dick agreed. “Compromises are like that.” He tipped his chin at Roy’s notebook which lay on the bed by his side. “Did you want to show me your homework?”

Roy nodded. He'd wanted to wait for Daddy, but it didn't seem like Daddy would care anymore.

He took the notebook, opened it to the right page, and turned it around to show it with a tiny thrill of pride and excitement, a ghost of what he'd felt when they'd come home.

He'd been learning his alphabet, and his homework today consisted of pages upon pages of cursive letters, uppercase and lowercase.

He’d worked on it all through the afternoon with Betty’s help (she hadn't helped much; just a little bit), and he hadn't cared much for the exercise—the Z's and the C’s were particularly tedious—but he’d practised all the letters in his name with extra care because, well, adults write their names all the time, so you've got to learn that. Rows and rows of lowercase R's stood next to each other like toy soldiers.

It had taken him some time and some help to put all of it together, but now the page read, in what Betty had promised were well-formed cursive letters:

_Roy J. Nixon_

_Lewis Nixon_

_Richard D. Winters_

Dick looked like he couldn't speak: he opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He blinked once, twice, and finally croaked: “That's very good, Roy. Very good.” He sniffed. “You go wash your hands and come down for dinner, okay?” He headed to the door.

Roy licked his lips, struck by a thought so nice and so brave that the mere force of it made him snap up sitting like a pop-up toy.

“Dick?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have your watch on Sundays?”

  
  


***

  
  


The midday sun shone so bright and hot that Dick and Roy, already drenched in sweat, called a break and went to sit in the shade inside the feed shed. Lew had made them both sandwiches before driving into town. Dick never went back to the house for lunch, preferring a quick bite on the field before going back to work.

Roy was quiet today; that is, quieter than usual. He’d used to be a charming, talkative boy, but teenagehood had darkened his moods, tinging them with a seemingly inexplicable melancholy that reminded Dick of Lew’s lows. Dick had never been like that, but he supposed that some young men liked experimenting with sadness and contrariness for the sake of feeling something different, and he wasn’t particularly worried about it. But they’d always been able to talk, Roy and he, even while the boy was wary of his father and turning shy when he was around, and if he was being honest with himself, he missed that a little.

“How’s school?” he asked, trying to start a conversation.

Roy shrugged. He folded the aluminum foil away from the chewed end of his sandwich. “Same old. Easy.”

“Yeah? Too easy?”

Roy shrugged again. “I guess.”

“School’s easy when you’ve got brains,” Dick commented. Roy’s cheek got a little warm, but he didn’t reply. Dick bumped his shoulder playfully into the boy’s. “And you’ve got your father’s brains,” he added.

Roy clucked his tongue. “He dropped out of college, didn’t he?”

“Yeah,” Dick said. “But not because he lacked the brains.”

“What then?”

Dick shook his head. “I guess he didn’t want to be there. It’s hard to make your father stay where he doesn’t want to be.”

Roy swallowed a bit of sandwich and looked up, his dark eyes narrowed and hooded. “Like with Mom.”

Dick didn’t know what to say to that. He considered defending Lew ( _“She left him.” “There was a war on, you know.” “Your father did what any decent man would have done.”_ ), but Roy was looking at him like he expected something better than the same, trite explanations he’d been given all his life, and suddenly Dick didn’t feel like treating him like a boy anymore.

“I think they both gave it a fair try,” he finally said. “It just didn’t work out.”

“That’s not what Aunt Margaret says.”

“Yeah? What does Aunt Margaret say?” Dick asked, dreading the answer a little. Unsurprisingly, they were not on good terms with Kathy’s family. Lew got lost to a dark mood every year when Roy left to visit his grandparents in Arizona, and what could have been a private holiday for them too turned into endless grumbling about the dozens of ways _they_ would be poisoning the boy’s mind against his father. He would refuse to crawl out of that hole until the boy made it back and he could assess the damage.

“That Dad was a cheater and a drunk and Mom cried every day.”

Now, while Dick had no trouble conceding the first part, he’d met Kathy once and heard more about her from Lew than he’d hoped to in a lifetime, and he seriously doubted that the steel-spined woman of his memory would have cried herself to sleep over her husband’s antics.

“I didn’t know her,” he confessed, hesitant to speak of the departed with anything less than respect, “but I suspect that they hurt each other a great deal.”

Roy shook his head. “You always take his side, don’t you?”

“I try not to,” Dick offered. “Is that what you think? That I take his side against you?”

Roy nodded morosely. “Yeah. Sometimes. I mean, all the time.”

“When did I do that?” Dick asked.

“Like when he threw away my running shoes,” Roy answered readily.

Dick squinted, trying to recall, but he didn’t want to admit that something Roy was obviously still sore about had barely registered. “The blue ones?” he asked, because the shoes he remembered fairly well, having seen them sit in the shoe rack in the entrance next to his for over three years, shiny new, barely ever used.

“He gave them away without asking me. Who the _hell_ does that? And you said—”

“Roy. Language,” Dick said, the reprimand coming out of his mouth almost without thinking. Roy threw his hands up in frustration.

“Yeah. _That_. Thanks, Dick.”

“Just because I don’t like you swearing—”

“But I was _right_ ,” Roy interrupted. “You know I was.”

“Maybe I thought that you were old enough to fight your own battles.”

Roy chuckled in disbelief. “What, with _him_? You can never win with him. You know how he gets.”

Dick watched Roy angrily squeeze the aluminum wrapping of his sandwich in his fist. “I know. But if you’re asking if I'll take your side next time, the answer’s no. I won’t enter your fights, Roy. He’s your father, and I’m—” He hesitated. He bent his head forward, casting his glance to the ground between his elbows resting on his knees.

Roy’s voice came from somewhere deep in his chest, a little choked sound, at one time squeaky and on his way to its future baritone.

“What?”

Dick looked up. “His friend,” he said, trying to keep his stupid pride at bay, to not show how much it meant to him to say that to someone—as poor, as insufficient, as unsatisfactory an approximation of the real thing it was.

Roy’s face hardened for a moment, scrunching up into a frown. He shook his head and threw the tiny ball of foil with a swing of his shoulder, up and far away into the barley fields. The glinting dot plunged straight down like a mortar round, and something inside Dick’s mind flexed and braced for an explosion.

“I know what you guys are,” Roy said, and that part of Dick’s mind that had kept him alive throughout the war fizzled and popped and went, _Ah, there it is._

Roy’s tight frown wavered and faltered into an uneasy grimace. He had clearly expected a reaction. Dick wasn’t sure what his face showed, but his cheeks felt numb like out on a cold day, and his teeth were clenched tight.

He forced his expression to relax, but by the time he did that, Roy had looked away, eyes shooting down to his hands. He scratched the dirt with the heel of his shoe like a nervous horse.

“Does it bother you?” Dick asked.

Roy hesitated, then slowly shook his head. “I don't know. No. I don't think so. Just—”

“Just?”

“Auntie said that you took Dad away.”

Dick felt a burst of anger flaming up in his chest. “He’s not a dog,” he said.

Roy spied on him through his eyelashes. “But did you?”

Dick shook his head. “No. It was after your mother served him divorce papers. The war in Europe was almost over, and I—Well. I guess we didn't see a point in denying it anymore.” He took a breath. “But as for _making_ him do it, please know that I could never make your father do a damn thing,” Dick said.

“You made him quit drinking,” Roy observed.

“ _You_ made him quit drinking,” Dick retorted, unable to stop a tiny hint of pettiness from dripping into his voice. “He wouldn’t give it up for me.”

Roy looked stunned. “Really?”

“Really.”

Roy considered the thought for a long moment, then breathed in and confessed: “I just don't think he likes me much.”

Dick put his hand on Roy’s shoulder and gave it an encouraging rub. He looked so young now, his shoulders so thin, his mouth pouting like a much younger kid. They still had a little time before they had to see him out on his path.

“He’s not the kind of man who’ll pat your back and say he’s proud. You’ll have to take my word for it.”

He let that sink in for a moment. He stood up, brushing the bread crumbs off his lap and he stretched his limbs. His legs felt a little wobbly, like after a long run, and he knew that nagging feeling at the back of his mind that they'd been found out wouldn't go away any time soon. They'd have to have another talk with Roy, instruct him about discretion; maybe he'd have to send Lew this time.

“Shall we?” Dick asked, hinting at the fields.

Roy nodded and followed him. He looked like he was still digesting all they had talked about, which was fine, as it should be. It was not until they got back to the spot where they'd left the harvester that Roy lifted his head, and said all in one breath:

“There's a person I want you guys to meet.”

  
  


***

  
  


_His first memory is Mommy’s strings of pearls. Three beautiful lines of shiny beads, warm to the touch, wrapped loosely around her neck. When he touched them they rattled softly, making a noise at one time similar and unlike any of his toys. Mommy didn't care much for him touching them; she pried his hand open with her red fingertips, tutted softly, and said, “Not now, Roy,” which he took as permission to try again later. But there would never be a later. There would never be a_ yes, now _moment._

 _Daddy says that he’s wrong, that Mommy never wore pearls because she hated pearls; he says that she said that they made her look like a—here Daddy says a word he doesn’t understand—and Roy wants to believe him because Daddy is a war hero and he knows everything. But the memory is so strong, so real: he can hear the pearls rattle in his mind, the quiet_ tick-tick-tick _sound pecking like rain outside the window, like pouring rice, like the second hand moving inside Dick’s wristwatch._

_He puts his ear to Dick’s watch, closes his eyes, and thinks of Mommy’s pearls._

  
  


***

  
  


“So, uh, Dad,” the boy started, gaze affixed on the mountain of dishes soaking in soapy water. “I was thinking. This Sunday. Maybe you can cook something nice.”

Dick raised his head from the plate he was towel-drying and threw Roy a glance. The boy was hunched over the sink, almost as if he were trying to disappear into it, which was as uncharacteristic as it was familiar, but Lew be damned if he could place it right now.

“As opposed to the slop I feed you every day? Thanks, son,” Lew grumbled good-naturedly from his chair, but instead of rolling his eyes or snorting at the joke, Roy let out a sigh.

“No, I mean—” He opened his soapy hands. He hadn’t rolled up his sleeves all the way, and now the edges were splashed with water. No matter; it was his work shirt. “—I was thinking of bringing someone. To lunch.”

There was a second of perfect, stunned silence. Roy’s wrists twisted nervously, half in, half out of the water, and he grabbed a plate and the sponge seemingly just to keep his hands occupied.

Dick kept silently at his drying duties. He was not so much looking at Roy as he was spying on him out of the corner of his eye.

“ _Someone_ , huh?” Lew said, eyes moving slowly from one man to the other. He was hit by a wave of concern and hid by scratching the sides of his mouth in a pensive gesture. “And who’s that?”

“You know Joe…”

Sure he did. Nice kid, Joe: polite, a little shy. He’d met him at some school gathering or other, the likes of which Lew went to alone, Dick trudging along only when it was big enough a thing that the whole town would be there anyway. Joe’s folks owned a cattle farm a few miles away, at biking distance, and his parents seemed like nice enough folks, yet Joe never came over, although that was not remarkable, since Roy’s friends rarely did.

“Hell, the way you said it, I thought we were gonna have the President over,” Lew joked, feeling a little unsteady, caught off-guard, but finding his footing as he went. “Sure he can come. What does he li—”

“Dad, not _him_ ,” Roy snorted, like the idea of having _Joe_ , of all people, over for lunch, was simply ridiculous. Now that was the real Roy emerging, the petulant, brazen teenager who made Lew’s hands itch with undelivered slaps and his chest ache with recognition. He spilled the beans easily, afterwards, confession coming out in a rush: “Joe’s sister. Leslie? You know Leslie.”

Dick’s smile was now fully concealed inside the collar of his shirt, eyes back on the plate like the future of their family depended upon it.

“I’m sure I don’t,” Lew said, a little baffled. “Is she—,” he grasped for the right question, “pretty?”

“Dad, _please_ ,” Roy groaned, which was the expected response, and a little deserved too. Lew exchanged a glance with Dick, who offered a minimal shrug.

“All right, all right,” Lew backed off. “What should we cook for the young miss?”

Roy already had an answer ready for that question. “I like your glazed ham.”

“Glazed ham it is. Potatoes or green beans?”

Roy shrugged. He hadn’t planned this as far as the side dish, apparently. “You decide.”

“I like your green beans,” Dick said.

“And maybe chocolate cake?” Roy added.

Lew smiled. “Anything else? A '47 Chateau Lafite?”

“She doesn’t drink,” Roy said, missing the joke.

“Of course she doesn’t. As if I was going to give booze to a—”

“I mean her family don’t. They're Quakers.”

Dick and Lew exchanged a glance. “Oh God,” Dick murmured, “not another one of those.”

***

“Did you know about this Sunday thing?” Lew asked him later, when they were getting ready for bed. Lew had got his own bathroom, two doors down the hall, but he liked using Dick’s in-room one sometimes. They would chat for a while, take stock of the past few days, talk about plans, and then Lew would go quietly back to his room.

He squirted a little too much toothpaste on his brush.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Dick was thrusting his legs into his pajamas; both bedside lamps were on, and the hairs on his legs shone fiercely orange before they disappeared under the cotton. “He mentioned it,” Dick admitted.

“Yeah?” Lew mumbled around the toothbrush. “When?”

“This morning. We talked some.”

“Mm.”

Lew mulled it over while he finished brushing his teeth, massaging the back spots a little more vigorously than needed. After rinsing his mouth he hung in the doorframe, wet toothbrush still in hand. Dick was in bed, his lamp off, but still awake.

“What?” Dick asked, seeing his face.

Lew waved the toothbrush in an empty gesture. “I guess he got me worried for a moment there. When he said—” He shook his head. They’d never talked about this, and now didn’t feel like an especially good time, but then again, would there ever be one? He shrugged, took a breath, and just got it out: “It’s a relief, you know. That it’s a girl.”

Something complicated crossed Dick’s face, something that tightened his brow and pursed his lips, and Lew wondered for a moment if he hadn’t unwittingly shot the first shot of a fight—or worse, started one of those long, sulky draughts where Dick pretended he wasn’t hurt or pissed about something that he considered it unbecoming to be hurt or pissed about, and Lew had to tiptoe around him until he could finally get an in to sort it out, or the thing just deflated on its own.

Dick’s brow softened. He nodded quietly. “Easier like this,” he acknowledged, which was true and also something Lew had thought about, but not at all what Lew had meant.

What Lew had meant, what sometimes made his insides coil painfully and some nights made him wake up drenched in sweat and took his breath away like a punch, was: _Thank God we haven't ruined him_.

Dick patted the bed in a calm, inviting gesture.

“What?” Lew asked, not even trying to hide his surprise.

His reaction seemed to chew at Dick’s confidence a little, but he didn’t back down. “Up to you,” Dick said, and then he pointed his thumb at the door as a half smirk pushed up the corner of his mouth. “I've got them lining up, you know.”

“That the way it is?” Lew mumbled, smiling as he pulled his side of the covers open with a violent pull which upset also Dick’s side, dragging the sheets away from Dick’s body all the way to his knees. “All those bored farmer's wives.” He propped himself up on one elbow and ran his free hand on Dick's side and then under the hem of his pajama shirt. Dick's muscles tightened and recoiled minutely from Lew’s touch, trying to protect the ticklish spot from abuse, but Lew simply opened his palm and laid it harmlessly around Dick's ribcage.

“Two nights in a row. Do you want to kill me?” Lew murmured.

“I’ll return you alive,” Dick promised. “If you sleep here.”

“I’m not sure that’s a great idea,” Lew hesitated.

Dick seemed to hold his breath for a moment, just like Lew had, and then, in a suddenly morose voice: “As I said. Roy and I talked a little.”

Lew's face fell. “You didn't.” He pulled his hand back.

“I didn’t,” Dick confirmed quietly. “But he got there on his own.”

“And you didn’t—?”

“What? Deny it?”

Dick looked a little ticked off, like the mere suggestion that he might lie about this, of all things, offended him. And maybe he was right at that: Lew didn’t like the sound of it either.

“Is he—,” he sighed, “I don’t know. Is he okay with it?”

“I think so. He might have questions.”

“Man, I’d have questions,” Lew muttered. He looked up at Dick through his lashes and released a long breath before rolling down on his back next to him. He’d thought of this moment many times, thought he’d be terrified, and it was terrifying in a way, but most of what he felt was relief.

“Hey,” Dick murmured after a while. He reached out and laid the back of his hand on Lew’s chest. “Stop worrying.”

“I’m not,” Lew lied.

“He’s a good boy,” Dick insisted.

“I said I’m not worried.”

“He’s a good boy because you raised him right.”

“Yeah? Where were you while I worked this miracle?”

Dick turned his head on his pillow, smiling. He stroked Lew’s chest gently with his knuckles. “Sleep here tonight?”

Lew rested his hand on Dick’s, interweaving Dick’s fingers with his, and pulled his hand up to his mouth to place a kiss on the back of it.

“Isn’t it a little on the nose?” he teased, even as he rolled back on his side to get closer to Dick. “What’s he gonna think?”

“Do you want me to ask him for permission? _I swear, Roy, my intentions with your father are completely honorable…_ ”

“They are? Damn it, I’m out of here.”

Dick grabbed the lapels of Lew’s pajamas, pulling him half on top of himself. “Are you?”

Lew laughed. “All right, all right. Just this once. Now shut up, will you? I’m trying to make something happen here.”


End file.
